Chapter Forty-Four
Evan
I come back in pieces.
Rough, jagged, cracked pieces.
First comes the pain, like a white-hot brand pulsing and piercing through my shoulder.
Then my ears start to work, picking up low voices, the distant sound of boots on the floor, the faint clink of ice in a glass somewhere, a moan of pain — mine.
Then my nose picks up the familiar clubhouse smell of oil, smoke, beer, and, stronger, the smell of antiseptic.
My eyes crack open.
I’m on a cot in one of the back rooms, the kind they use when someone’s too busted to go home but too stubborn to stay in a hospital.
That, or the patient is a traitorous liar that they don’t want to take to a hospital and risk them running away from justice.
My arm is in a sling. A thick bandage wraps my shoulder and chest, tight enough to keep me from bleeding out again.
Whoever stitched me up knew what they were doing.
Bishop.
I try to sit and immediately regret it; my mouth opens and a groan of pain comes out.
“Easy,” a voice says from the corner. “You tear my stitches, I’ll switch to staples, and I’m not very good at those. Hell, I’ll probably end up stapling you to the mattress.”
“Why the hell am I here?”
I scan the room and it’s dark; the shades are drawn, and the lights are off, probably to help me sleep. There’s a click as Bishop flips on a light and pulls a seat next to my bed. He’s got a medical kit on a table beside him and the look of a man who’s done this too many times.
“You’re alive,” he adds, like that wasn’t a foregone conclusion. “That’s why you’re here.”
“June,” I say, throat dry as sand. “Where’s my sister?”
Bishop’s eyes flick to the door. “She’s here in the building.”
That’s not good enough. I swing my legs off the cot and try to stand. The room tilts, and Bishop’s hand shoots out, catching my good arm. He steadies me, then inexorably pushes me back onto the bed.
“Sit.”
“I’m not doing a damn thing until I see her.”
“You’re bleeding through your bandages.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do. Fuck, I work hard at this shit. Do you know how much time I spent studying this shit? And then all the fucking fieldwork I had to do? And everyone — you, and every other idiot in this fucking club — acts like they can get shot, I’ll just patch it up, and they can get up the next fucking day and just walk it off, and if they get hurt again, I’ll just be right here to fix them again, no problem. ”
There’s anger in his voice, but something else, too — hurt; he gives a damn, even if he doesn’t want to say as much out loud aside from complaining.
I take a deep breath and look him in the eyes.
“I appreciate what you did for me. Thank you. You saved my life, and I was acting like a fucking asshole by ignoring you. I just want to see my sister and make sure she’s OK. Can you bring her here?”
Bishop studies me for one long beat, then nods.
“Fine. Since you were a decent human being for a second. But don’t move, or I swear to god, if you abuse my kindness, then what I do to you will make them add a new fucking line to the Hippocratic Oath.”
Bishop leaves, but not for long. And when he returns, it’s not with June.
Instead, in just minutes, the room is beyond crowded with a pack of Devils.
Rabid stands dead center, arms folded, looking at me like a judge about to sentence someone to death row, and I don’t know if that’s just his normal look, or if the bullets and sacrifice I made to help save the Devils just wasn’t enough to earn me mercy.
Goldie is beside him, with a calm face, dangerous eyes, and a set of Buddhist prayer beads on his wrist. Tank and Reaper lean against the wall like carved stone.
Alessia is there too, chin lifted, gaze sharp enough to cut glass.
Claire stands a step back, expression unreadable.
And then there’s Molly.
She’s near the doorway, arms crossed, hair a wreck, face smudged like she’s been through a war — which she has. Her eyes hit mine and don’t move. The war with the Sons might be on pause for now, but there’s another war still raging in her heart.
My sister’s nowhere to be seen.
Rabid’s gaze rakes over my bandage, my sling, my bare feet on the cold floor.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” he says. It’s not a question. More a reminder not to count my eggs before they hatch.
“I want to see June,” I say again, louder. “Now.”
Rabid’s jaw works like he’s chewing on a decision. Then he looks at Reaper and inclines his head toward the door. “Bring her in.”
I hear footsteps. A small shuffle. A shaky, shallow breath that catches like a sob being strangled.
June appears in the doorway.
Her hair is tangled. There’s a bruise blooming along her cheekbone and a red mark at her wrist like someone held her too tight for too long.
That, or she struggled in the grip of a Devil who had no idea what kind of wily, disobedient, trouble-making, lovable menace he was dealing with. But she’s upright. Breathing. Alive.
Her eyes find mine, and her face crumples into something sorrowful and loving.
“Evan,” she whispers. She runs — stumbles, really — and comes to the side of the bed.
I catch her with my good arm, crushing her to my chest like I can weld her there with force and tears.
She’s shaking. She smells of fear and stale sweat and sickness.
As I press a gentle kiss to her forehead, I feel the burn of fever. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“June,” I choke out. “I’ve got you. You’re out. And no matter what happens, you’re free.”
She clings to me so hard that it hurts my shoulder. I don’t care. I pull her tighter.
Behind her, the room stays silent. Nothing but a pack of Devils watching. Waiting.
June pulls back just enough to look at me. Her lower lip trembles. “They said you…” She swallows. “They said that since you were working for the Sons… they might… they were going to…”
I frown, my eyes scanning the room briefly to see if I can make out which Devil told my little sister that they might kill me for cooperating with the Sons. All I see is a bunch of stony faces. And Molly.
“I know.” I glance past her to Molly — just a flicker. “I’m sorry. I did what I had to do to get you out, and that means things might be tricky for me for a while. But no matter what, you know that I’m always going to look out for you, right?”
June’s eyes fill with love and pain. “You… saved me. But what happens now?”
“Of course I saved you. I loved you. You’re all I’ve got, ever since mom and dad…” I say, and I stop, my voice failing me. “What happens now is that you’re going to be safe, you’re going to stay out of trouble, and you’re going to have a good life.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be all right.”
I don’t know if it’s true, but I sell it like it is. When it comes to keeping my sister safe, I can be a pretty good liar. She hugs me again, then steps aside when Bishop gently guides her to a chair. Claire moves in automatically, offering her water, her presence steady in the way caretakers are.
Rabid steps forward.
The space between us becomes a line on the ground. Cross it wrong and you die.
He looks at me like he’s weighing whether I’m worth the oxygen in the room.
“You put enemy boots in my house,” he says, voice low and even. “You fed them code access. You handed them intel about our businesses, about our home, about us and our families. Men, women, children could’ve died.”
“They almost did,” Goldie adds quietly. “It was really fucking uncool, bro.”
I nod once. There’s nothing else to say.
Rabid’s eyes harden. “Give me one reason we don’t finish what Midnight started and put you in the dirt.”
June makes a small sound behind me.
My eyes find Molly. She's not looking at Rabid. She's looking at me. Her jaw is tight and her hands are at her sides, and she hasn't moved. That's enough.
I lift my chin anyway. Meet Rabid’s eyes without blinking.
“Because I didn’t run. Because I came to you and I put my fucking life on the line to protect your clubhouse, to protect my sister, to protect Molly.
You can do whatever the hell it is you’re going to do to me and call it justice; I don’t give a damn now that Molly and my sister are both safe. I won’t run.”
Silence.
A silence that stretches on while my sister quietly cries and Molly looks at me as if she doesn’t know whether she wants them to kill me or whether she wants Rabid to step aside so she can kiss me.
Rabid doesn’t move. “Where does your real loyalty lie?”
“I’m not Sons of Sorrow,” I say. “Never was. I was fucking independent. They only targeted me because of my connection to Molly, and my sister’s connection to their club.
My loyalty belongs to the people who matter: my sister, and Molly, if she’ll have me.
The rest of you? Fuck, I’ll make amends, however that works.
I’ll work. I’ll bleed. I’ll take whatever punishment you want to hand me. But I’m done being someone else’s dog.”
Goldie’s mouth twitches like he almost believes me and hates that fact.
“And Molly?” Rabid asks, like her name is a blade. “You hurt her. You dragged her into it. You gonna tell me why I shouldn’t run you out of town just for that?”
My chest tightens. I glance at Molly again. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t soften.
“I think you should give that choice to her. She’s the one I hurt… and the one I love. Whatever she decides, I’ll accept.”
Rabid watches her for a beat, then nods. “Molly?”
Molly is silent for a time. A long time.
Her eyes on me, and within them is a battle that makes what happened in the Devil’s clubhouse look like a playground fight between kindergarteners.
She may have forgiven me in the moment, when it looked like the Sons of Sorrow were about to mow us down in a hail of bullets, but it’s another thing entirely to forgive me with everyone in her family watching.
I look back at her and smile. It’s small, meant only for her.